ITSM best practices and service access: where IAM teams should look

TL;DR: ITSM practices can improve service quality, efficiency, and self-service, but Zluri’s analysis also shows they only work when approval flows, access requests, and provisioning are tightly governed. The deeper issue is that service management becomes an identity control problem as soon as tickets drive access decisions.

NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Zluri: Best Practices 5 ITSM Best Practices for Organizations

By the numbers:

• Only 13% of organisations feel extremely prepared for the reality of agentic AI despite the majority racing toward autonomous adoption.

Questions worth separating out

Q: How should security teams govern self-service access in ITSM workflows?

A: Treat self-service as a governed access path, not a convenience layer.

Q: Why do ITSM tools often create identity governance gaps?

A: They are usually designed to move tickets, not to enforce ownership, expiry, or recertification.

Q: What breaks when service requests are not tied to access approvals?

A: The workflow loses its control point and becomes a fast route to privilege sprawl.

Practitioner guidance

• Map service requests to identity decisions Classify every common request as a provisioning, change, or deprovisioning event, then assign an owner and approval rule to each path.
• Build policy checks into self-service workflows Require role validation, app ownership, and exception logging before a request can create access or assign a license.
• Add identity outcomes to ITSM KPI dashboards Track approval latency, orphaned access, exception frequency, and removal completion alongside incident and availability metrics.

What's in the full article

Zluri's full article covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:

• Step-by-step examples of how the ITSM practices are applied in day-to-day service operations
• The product-oriented explanation of Zluri's Employee App Store and SaaS approval workflow flow
• The vendor's guidance on app visibility, license assignment, and request handling for new joiners
• The practical onboarding and adoption angles that support IT operations teams

👉 Read Zluri's ITSM best practices article for service management and access workflow detail →

ITSM best practices and service access: where IAM teams should look?

Explore further

View Full Forum →  |  NHI Foundation Course →